


the art of growing up

by egeria



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Post-Canon, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:33:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24583108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egeria/pseuds/egeria
Summary: the worst part about growing up is realizing that you had a terrible childhood.--zuko slowly learns to confront his childhood.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 302





	the art of growing up

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't written anything in a year, and this is my first atla fanfic
> 
> i resonated with zuko a lil too much. this story focusses on the ages 17-22. this is by NO MEANS a guide to healthy coping mechanisms. if anything, it's snippets of getting to the point where coping in a healthy fashion is... a thing.

Zuko has been Fire Lord for six months when he realizes that he can’t remember being twelve. Or really, he can’t remember a decent chunk of his childhood.

It’s the early morning, the sun still below the horizon. Zuko hadn’t slept at all. His eyes had never strayed from the fire in the hearth, his hands clenched around the glass of wine that had never been drunk. His brain struggled to remember the year before his banishment. What was he doing during that time? Surely he was in school, in training, and attending various events. But every memory is blurry, as if viewed through the eyes of a drunk. Nothing is concrete. He can’t even see his own face.

A bird chirps outside. 

Zuko stands, his hand still holding the wine. He opens the window and tosses out the untouched beverage in the general direction of the bird. There’s an indignant tweet. For good measure, Zuko throws the glass as well, before slamming the window shut.

He immediately feels bad.

His eyes go back to the fire, still roaring. He tries one last time to remember being twelve. It was only five years ago, he thinks. It can’t be that hard.

No memory surfaces. The bird chirps again. It’s time for a new day, the bird is saying.

Zuko puts the fire out.

\--

Katara and Aang come to visit for his eighteenth birthday. Eighteen is the age of adulthood in the Fire Nation, not that that means much for Zuko, who’d been an adult since he was thirteen. But nevertheless, it’s a reason for celebration. With an economy that seems to be constantly on the brink of collapse, the citizens of the Fire Nation will take any excuse to party.

At the party, Zuko gladly lets Aang have most of the attention, and finds the time to escape to the balcony for a quick breather. Parties had never been his forte. He always felt like he was doing something wrong, like he wasn’t behaving like someone in his station ought. 

Even though Ozai is locked away in a cell, Zuko can still feel his disapproving stare, the heat crawling up his back, and creeping to his scar. Stand up straighter, bow deeper, avert your eyes, shut up. 

Zuko feels a hand on his back and jumps. “It’s just me,” the person says. Katara.

He turns to her, trying to plaster a smile on his face, making it seem like he wasn’t thinking about his father. But Katara always knows, and with a sad smile of her own, she gives his arm a squeeze. “Would you like to be alone?” she asks.

Zuko shrugs. “I don’t think I’m ever alone here.”

Katara hmm’s, and comes to join him against the rail, looking out at the city. He doesn’t know if she interpreted that as a comment about the fact that the palace is never empty, or if she knew Zuko was talking about the overbearing presence of the former Fire Lord.

But he’s reminded of how introspective his friend is when he sees her staring at the looming prison across the city, her eyes narrowed. It can barely be made out in the dark, but if you know it’s there, it becomes hard to miss.

\--

Iroh had tried his best to teach Zuko during his banishment, but it was hard to continue the Prince’s education whilst on a boat. Because of that, there were still some things he needed to catch up on education-wise.

For instance, math.

“But why is there a letter?” Zuko asked, his head buried in his hands. 

Iroh was visiting for a few months, his tea house in the safe hands of his staff. Last week, when sitting in a meeting led by a team of engineers, Iroh realized that his nineteen-year-old nephew didn’t know algebra, or really any complex math. The Fire Lord had succeeded in hiding his confusion during the meeting, but afterward expressed how frustrated he was that he couldn’t follow a single thing. So, Iroh took it upon himself to teach the young man.

It was proving to be a lot more difficult than he’d thought.

The older man frowned. “I can’t really answer that. Just know that it is.”

Zuko groaned, his head leaving his hands in order to gracefully fall onto the desk. “Can’t we just accept that I’m too stupid for this and move on?”

Iroh frowned. “You’re not stupid, Fire Lord Zuko,” he said. “Why on earth would you think you’re stupid? It’s been years since you’ve taken a math class. There’s no expectation of you understanding this quickly.”

Zuko lifted his head, levying his uncle with a glare. “I’ve always been bad at school. I’m just too dumb.”

The temperature seemed to spike in the room as Iroh straightened, his gaze becoming sharp. Zuko sat up straighter in his own seat, leaning back a bit from his enraged uncle. 

“Who told you that you were bad at school?” Iroh asked, his voice like steel.

The Fire Lord continued to stare at his uncle, before cautiously answering. “My fath- Fire Lord Ozai,” he said. He always went back and forth on the title he bestowed upon the man. “My marks were never high enough, I was too lazy, I was distracted too easily, I-”

“Enough.”

The temperature spiked again, and Zuko averted his eyes. 

Iroh rounded the desk, and with a gentleness that did not match his current aura, placed his hands on his nephew’s shoulders. “Zuko, those were all lies.”

Zuko raised his eyes to look at his uncle. “Perhaps,” he said. “But perhaps not.”

The older man raised an eyebrow. “You accept that Ozai told many lies in his life, and committed many wrongs. Yet you cannot accept that his words about you were also false? Were also venomous?”

The uncle and the nephew held eye contact for many moments before the younger broke the gaze. “I don’t know how to explain what I feel,” he said. “Sometimes I hate him, and my brain denounces everything he’s ever said about me. Sometimes, I still crave his love, and my brain tells me all of the ways that I should’ve been better.” A pause. “What’s wrong with me? Am I too stupid to even decide if I hate my own father?”

Iroh sighed, and the temperature in the room slowly climbed back down to normal. His shoulders seemed to melt as he pulled his nephew’s head to his chest. They sat there together, letting the time pass, and Zuko slowly leaned into his uncle, burying his nose into his stomach. 

“What you must traverse through with regards to your father is difficult. Not all poison leaves the body immediately, Zuko. Sometimes, we must cleanse ourselves of it. And only you can decide how you want to cleanse your soul of his poison.” Another pause, a minute passing. “The fact that you are able to dissect the battle inside of you shows your intelligence, and I am proud of you for it every day.”

Silence again, lasting into the night.

\--

Zuko stares up at the construction in the throne room. The economy had recently improved, and while everything was far from perfect, the Fire Lord felt a little less guilty about the much needed renovation.

“You’re adding windows?” Sokka asked, leaning against a pillar. 

Zuko nodded, his enthusiasm apparent. “Yes!” He quickly moved aside for a construction worker. “This room has been uncomfortably gloomy for too long, don’t you think?”

The Southern Water Tribe ambassador raised an eyebrow. He rarely saw his friend this enthusiastic, and he would have never bet that this rare show of joy would be from the installation of windows.

“I always thought the ambiance was….” he trailed off, “intense. But wasn’t that the point?”

Zuko shrugged and looked around the room some more. “I’ve spent seventeen out of my twenty years alive in this room. Well, you know, in and out of the room.”

“I got what you were saying.”

“Right,” he cleared his throat. “Anyways. I have no good memories attached to this room, so since I have to spend an especially long amount of time in here now, I thought, hey, why not change things up a bit! Make the room feel different.”

Sokka sighed. This was just like when Katara got depressed last winter and filled her home with plants. “How long ago did you decide to do this?”

“Two days ago,” Zuko answered. “In the meeting with the economic advisor.” Zuko frowned. “This was super impulsive, wasn’t it?”

“Yep,” Sokka responded, coming up to Zuko. The man in question looked up at the construction. “But to be fair, I think some natural light will do wonders for this room.”

Zuko laughed, looking over at his friend. “Yeah, maybe the natural light will help stop the flashbacks of my father yelling at me while I knelt on the ground, terrified for my life. You know what they say, the sun is the best medicine a man can get,” Sokka frowned. “That was supposed to be a joke.” The frown deepened. “Well, I guess that wasn’t funny?” A head shake. Zuko sighed.

Then, an idea. “I could also get rid of the throne. Maybe that would help.”

Sokka groaned, a hand coming up to rub his forehead. “Spirits, Zuko.”

\--

Zuko sat on his ship as it departed Kyoshi Island. He was alone. Not ideal.

He’d gone to celebrate the engagement of Suki and Sokka, and while he’d had a fantastic time with his friends, he couldn’t help but feel numb now that he was heading back.

It’s not that he was lonely. Zuko had many friends, and they all regularly wrote to each other, and it seemed like there was someone visiting every few weeks. 

But every time his friends left, or he left his friends, an image popped in his head. A hallway in the palace, the light of the torches barely lighting it, and a woman walking away from him, disappearing into the night.

Were he even a year or two younger, he’d push that image out of his head, and instead drink an entire bottle of wine. As it stands, he should probably deal with his abandonment issues if he ever wants to actually have healthy friendships.

With a sigh, Zuko got into his meditative stance. Just meditate on what’s bothering you, a voice in his head said, a voice that sounded suspiciously like a certain Avatar. If you confront it, you’ll be able to learn how to overcome it.

So with two small flames in his hand and his eyes closed, Zuko conjured the image in his head. Except in this image, his mother is facing him, her face blank. Zuko imagined walking up to her, going for a hug, before pausing. He imagined asking her why she abandoned him, why she left him with Ozai, why she let him be abused and banished and humiliated and-

Zuko paused, his breaths, which had rapidly sped up, slowing back down, and erased that image. 

Again, Zuko conjured up the image. Only this time, as he went for the hug, he heard himself say “It would’ve been kinder to let me die.”

His eyes flashed open, and he quickly diminished the sparks. That was enough meditation for tonight.

He stood and grabbed the wine bottle. 

\--

He’d had to hire a therapist from the Earth Kingdom. Every Fire Nation therapist was too terrified of saying the wrong thing. It was terribly inconvenient, but after a few sessions, Zuko found he didn’t mind too much.

He was telling the story of Katara confronting her mother’s killer, a story that was only six years ago, but felt like a lifetime.

“It was hard for me to comprehend,” he told his therapist, one of his hands idly playing with the sleeve of his robe. “How she could just not kill that man, when I myself was actively working to have my own father killed. It just reminded me of how awful of a person I am.”

“Hmm,” the therapist responded. Zuko looked up.

“What?”

“You were advocating for the death of your father in a time of war, if I’m not incorrect. And you thought his death was the only way to end the war.”

Zuko frowned. “Yes.”

“Well,” the therapist said, folding their hands in their lap. “I think that’s a bit different than her situation. I mean, your father is still alive, is he not?”

Zuko’s frown deepened. “Yes?”

“And how do you feel about your father being alive?”

“Uh…” Zuko reached his hand that had been playing with his sleeve to his neck, where he rubbed it, perhaps just a bit too aggressively. “I don’t really know. I try not to think about him, but it’s…”

The therapist stared. 

“... hard.”

“Which is fair. He was a dominating force in your life for sixteen years. He guided every decision you made.”

Zuko’s hand lowered back to his lap, and he let his frown drop, his face pensive. “I’d argue that his force is still here, guiding my decisions.”

The therapist cocked their head. “Would Ozai have ordered and paid for a therapist to come here from the Earth Kingdom?”

“Well…” Zuko frowned again. “No.”

The therapist hummed a bit. “Then I’d argue that he’s making fewer decisions via his force than you think.”

Zuko leaned back into his chair. “Huh.” A few beats of silence. “What’s the conclusion to this, then?”

“The conclusion of what?”

Zuko waved his hand around the room. “You know… this. All of this. If he’s slowly leaving, if it’s all getting better, how does it end?”

The therapist pursed their lips. “It doesn’t end, exactly. It’ll never end. But you’ll just slowly get better at cleaning his presence out. At ignoring it.”

The Fire Lord frowned. “Like cleansing poison?”

The therapist shrugged. “That’s one way to think about it. The poison might leave permanent damage-” Zuko’s scar flared, “but you’ll continue to get better. It’s a fight, but you’re already starting to win.”

\--

Later that night, Zuko stood on the balconies, looking out at the city, and the prison looming on its horizon. The oppressive heat was still present in his body, climbing up his spine. The flame of his father could be felt in his veins. But even still, it was cooler than before.

And that’s progress.


End file.
